John Ray

Ray, John

John Ray, an English naturalist regarded as one of the earliest English parson-naturalists, published important works on botany, zoology, and natural theology. As the first to introduce the term “species,” Ray is recognized as the “Father of English natural history,” a founder of Modern Biology, elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1667.

Biographical Overview

At the age of sixteen, Ray enter Cambridge University to study at Trinity College.

Starting with Catalogus plantarum circa Cantabrigiam nascentium (1660), and ending with the posthumous publication of Synopsis Methodica Avium et Piscium in 1713, Ray published systematic works on plants, birds, mammals, fish, and insects, in which he brought order to the chaotic mass of names in use by the naturalists of his time.

Like Carolus Linnaeus, understanding nature to follow a Divine Order, Ray assigned names to reflect this presumed “natural system.”

In the 1690s, Ray published three volumes on religion—the most popular being The Wisdom of God Manifested in the Works of the Creation (1691), an essay describing evidence that all in nature and space is God’s creation as in the Bible is affirmed.

Born in England, 1672-1705

Worldview

Using a biblical worldview perspective, Ray successfully applied the scientific method to investigate the laws of nature,  His worldview is notable from what he said –

“Our Understanding too dark and infirm to discover and comprehend all the Ends and Uses to which the infinitely wise Creator did design them”

“My observation and affirmation is that there is no such thing in nature” and he referred to spontaneous generation as “the atheist’s fictitious and ridiculous account of the first production of mankind and other animals.”

“The plants and animals were ‘the works created by God at first, and by Him conserved to this day in the same state and condition in which they were first made.’

“The number of corporeal Creatures is unmeasurably great, and known only to the Creator himself.”

“The infinitely Wise Creator hath shewn many instances, that he is not confin’d to one only instrument for the working one Effect, but can perform the same thing by divers means.”

“We received our Life and Being from a Divine Wisdom and Power.”

Scientific investigation is “a proper exercise of man’s faculties and a legitimate field of Christian inquiry.”

“There is for a free man no occupation more worthy and delightful than to contemplate the beauteous works of nature and honour the infinite wisdom and goodness of God.”

John Ray

Pin It on Pinterest

Share This